Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has honored 5 emergency service employees with medals for his or her bravery through the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“Five SES staff members were honored ‘for courage’ of the III degree by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky,” the State Emergency Service (SES) of Ukraine mentioned in a submit sharing the photographs of the honorees on March 17.
“Congratulations to our colleagues for their well-deserved award!” the SES assertion says.
“We respect your work and understand that you are doing the same now as our military. Ukraine is grateful to each and every one of you,” the Ukrainian president advised the medal recipients.
In the footage, Zelensky is first seen getting into a room accompanied by a soldier in full fight gear and sporting an assault rifle together with members of his employees earlier than he greets the 5 awardees and shakes their palms.
The emergency employees, who might be seen sporting Ukrainian flags on their uniforms, heartily shake their president’s hand in return.
Zelensky, who was a comic portraying a president in a well-liked TV collection earlier than he truly gained Ukraine’s 2019 presidential election with 73 % of the vote, then thanks them for his or her service and palms every one a medal for his or her bravery.
The 5 golden medals might be seen up shut within the footage, sitting in adorned pink containers.
State Emergency Service of Ukraine/Zenger
The Ukrainian president, who advised the U.S. authorities officers “I need ammo, not a ride,” after they supplied to evacuate him from the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv originally of Russia’s invasion, poses with the medal recipients and an unidentified younger baby in navy fatigues because the footage ends.
The regularly heroic efforts of Ukraine’s emergency service employees in rescuing individuals from burning buildings, treating the wounded and serving to present protected passage for these fleeing the Russian bombardment have garnered media consideration all over the world.
In one in every of many horrifyingly comparable eventualities, Ukrainian emergency service employees reduce residents out of their flats and led them to security in a Kyiv neighborhood on March 17 after a downed missile hit their constructing. One particular person was killed and three had been wounded within the incident.
In one other case, on March 16, dozens of firefighters in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest metropolis, battled for hours an enormous blaze set off by Russian shelling within the metropolis’s market space.
Preventing future devastating fires and explosions has been the main focus of Ukrainian National Police bomb squads. They have detonated no less than 350 explosive units left behind by Russian troopers throughout a warfare now in its fourth week.
State Emergency Service of Ukraine/Zenger
This story was offered to Newsweek by Zenger News.